For those of us used to seeing Jenny Agutter in a nun’s habit on Call The Midwife, it will come as something of a shock to see her as a vampish seductress in her latest movie.
It is, says the 66-year-old actress rather proudly, a role she absolutely relished. Part of the reason she took the part in Sometimes Always Never was to free herself from the constraints of Sister Julienne’s strait-laced image. ‘It’s a pretty big change for me,’ she laughs as she describes her role as Margaret, a woman adrift and trying to find her missing son but who wants to escape the sadness of her marriage by becoming romantically involved with Bill Nighy.
For those of us used to seeing Jenny Agutter in a nun’s habit on Call The Midwife, it will come as something of a shock to see her as a vampish seductress in her latest movie
‘It is a very quirky black comedy and I loved Margaret because she is refusing to give up on life. She’s a bit of a rock chick stuck in the Seventies and she’s not afraid to be open about her sexuality.
‘There is even an almost sex scene with Bill, but we didn’t have the budget for an actual bedroom scene because that would have required another set. We ended up doing a post-sex scene where Bill and I are both in towels on the stairs after being discovered by his son.’
In real life Agutter is much more discreet, although starring in several iconic productions, from The Railway Children to Walkabout, Logan’s Run and currently the television phenomenon that is Call The Midwife, has not stopped her from taking Tubes, trains or buses or roaming around cities.
‘It’s a compliment that someone would come out of their way to tell you they like what you do,’ she says. ‘You also see the sort of people who watch your show. It amazes me how many men watch Call The Midwife.’
Jenny Agutter as Sister Julienne in Call The Midwife. Agutter laughs: ‘I have been a nun for eight years now and in a habit for eight years, so for me it’s a treat to do something different’
We are here to talk about Sometimes Always Never, about a father (Nighy) who tries to connect with his missing son through playing online Scrabble. Nighy plays a retired tailor who believes his son, who ran away from home several years earlier, is his online opponent. After meeting in a hotel, Margaret ends up having an affair with Nighy.
Agutter laughs: ‘I have been a nun for eight years now and in a habit for eight years, so for me it’s a treat to do something different. I would always jump at the chance to play opposite Bill, and as soon as I read the script I was intrigued. Margaret is a very emotional woman who has no issues talking about sex. She’s very comfortable in herself – she loves the rock chick clothes, and that was a lot of fun after spending six months of every year in a grey habit.’
Her habit has, however, reignited her career, with the chance to appear in Hollywood blockbuster movies, from Captain America to The Avengers – at an age when many female stars are struggling for parts.
Call The Midwife also managed to supersede – in the public imagination – her role as the plucky Bobbie in the TV and film adaptations of the children’s classic, The Railway Children. This made her a star at the age of 18, propelling her into Hollywood, where the following year she picked up an Emmy for The Snow Goose and massive critical acclaim for Nicolas Roeg’s coming-of-age movie, Walkabout.
Amazingly, when Agutter first read the script for Call The Midwife she believed it would be a huge flop. ‘I thought, who in this day and age is going to tune into a series about midwives, nuns and a really impoverished part of London in the Fifties? Nobody is ever going to watch this. I prepared myself for just one series.’
She could not have been more wrong. The show has a regular audience of more than ten million, has racked up 17 television awards and is one of the BBC’s best exports, with a huge following in America. Earlier this year the BBC announced it had been commissioned until 2022. Does she ever feel like she needs to quit? ‘I do,’ she says. ‘But then I read the scripts and they just get better. People think it is soft and cosy but we deal with tough stuff – illegal abortions, homosexuality, wife-beating, alcoholism, sexual assault, and there are these endless emotional layers of humanity pitted against the law and religious morals. I’m incredibly proud to be part of it.’
She’s very comfortable in herself … not afraid to be open about her sexuality
A gutter, who was awarded an OBE in 2012, has had a good professional life but she thinks of herself as an ‘accidental actress’. The child of an Army officer, her childhood was spent in Singapore, Cyprus and Malaya, until a talent for dance was discovered and she was sent to a ballet school in England. At the age of 12 she was cast in the 1964 movie East Of Sudan. ‘I left school at 16 with no other qualifications, and the acting offers kept slowly coming.’
In Hollywood she had major success with Logan’s Run and a slew of movies. ‘But I wasn’t very good at the celebrity stuff. I’d go to parties and people would ask what I was doing and I’d say, “Oh nothing at the moment”, and then I’d be pulled to one side and told I must never say that. But I always just told the truth.’
Did she experience the darker side of Hollywood, with predatory casting agents and directors? ‘I was aware of it. There were times I would be pushed into a swimsuit, which I never felt comfortable about, but I did it. If I was asked to go out to dinner, I would ask what was the reason. If there wasn’t one and that person had a reputation, I would just decline. I actually had a very happy time in Hollywood.’
There Agutter was most definitely something of a sex symbol, a fact that makes her cough and smile today. ‘It’s not something I ever thought myself to be,’ she says. She did not, however, behave like a sex symbol – there were no high-profile relationships, no broken engagements or unsuitable marriages.
Jenny Agutter with Bill Nighy and Tim McInnerny in Sometimes Always Never
‘I was single for a quite a long time in my late 20s and early 30s, and I just resigned myself to never marrying or having children. It can be difficult to meet people in this industry and you then just stop expecting to meet anyone,’ she says.
She was nearly 40 when she met Johan Tham, a Swedish hotelier who was a director of Cliveden Hotel in Buckinghamshire. The year after their marriage in 1990 their son Jonathan was born. ‘I was very lucky,’ she says. ‘I had given up hope of being married and just thought marriage and motherhood isn’t my path. I love what I do but my family is an absolute blessing.’
When asked what her ambitions are she says quickly, ‘To direct The Tempest in Tobago’, where she has a small home. Commitments to Call The Midwife, however, take priority. We talk about the pleasures and pains of making the show. ‘Wearing a habit means I don’t have to sit for hours in a make-up chair, which is great. But the make-up room is the best for gossip and chatting so I tend to sit in there anyway, drinking coffee.’
The most ‘miserable’ aspect of filming is, she says, not the brutal births or the endless hours in the chapel, but the cosy mealtimes.
‘Nightmare,’ she says. ‘They can take up to 12 hours because there are so many issues over continuity, who spoke and ate what when. It all has to go back exactly. You can’t eat bread or you end up with such a dry mouth. The funniest times we had around the table were with Miriam Margolyes, who temporarily joined Nonnatus House in series eight.
‘Everyone else takes the tiniest bites of a tomato or tries to avoid eating anything but Miriam would just tuck in. She loved the food. It was hilarious. The continuity people would have to add more food constantly because Miriam kept eating all the pies. That made us all laugh. We do really have fun on that show.’ e
‘Sometimes Always Never’ is in cinemas from June 14